The Left Hand of Darkness

Zusatztext Praise for The Left Hand of Darkness [A] science fiction masterpiece. Newsweek A jewel of a story.Frank Herbert As profuse and original in invention as The Lord of the Rings .Michael Moorcock An instant classic. Minneapolis Star-Tribune Like all great writers of fiction! Ursula K. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us! hearts eased! to our own. The Boston Globe A towering figure in science fiction and fantasy.NPR Informationen zum Autor Ursula K. Le Guin, with a new Foreword by David Mitchell and a new Afterword by Charlie Jane Anders Klappentext 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION-WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS Ursula K. Le Guin's groundbreaking work of science fiction-winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter! a world without sexual prejudice! where the inhabitants' gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange! intriguing culture he encounters... Embracing the aspects of psychology! society! and human emotion on an alien world! The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction. Ace Books by Ursula K. Le Guin CHANGING PLANES THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS THE OTHER WIND TALES FROM EARTHSEA THE TELLING THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS URSULA K. LE GUIN Ursula Kroeber Le Guin , daughter of A. L. Kroeber (anthropologist) and Theodora Kroeber (author), was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. She attended college at Radcliffe and Columbia, and married C. A. Le Guin in Paris in 1953. The Left Hand of Darkness was awarded both the Nebula and the Hugo awards. With the awarding of the 1975 Hugo and Nebula awards to The Dispossessed , Ursula K. Le Guin became the first author to win both awards twice for novels. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION S CIENCE FICTION IS OFTEN DESCRIBED, AND EVEN DEFINED, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. If this goes on, this is what will happen. A prediction is made. Method and results much resemble those of a scientist who feeds large doses of a purified and concentrated food additive to mice, in order to predict what may happen to people who eat it in small quantities for a long time. The outcome seems almost inevitably to be cancer. So does the outcome of extrapolation. Strictly extrapolative works of science fiction generally arrive about where the Club of Rome arrives: somewhere between the gradual extinction of human liberty and the total extinction of terrestrial life. This may explain why many people who do not read science fiction describe it as escapist, but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because it's so depressing. Almost anything carried to its logical extreme becomes depressing, if not carcinogenic. Fortunately, though extrapolation is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's. Variables are the spice of life. This book is not extrapolative. If you like you can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment. Let's say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let's say (says Philip K. Dick) that the Allies lost the Second World War; let's say this or that is such and so, and see what happe...

Praise for The Left Hand of Darkness

“[A] science fiction masterpiece.”—Newsweek

“A jewel of a story.”—Frank Herbert

“As profuse and original in invention as The Lord of the Rings.”—Michael Moorcock

“An instant classic.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Like all great writers of fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own.”—The Boston Globe

“A towering figure in science fiction and fantasy.”—NPR

Autorentext

Ursula K. Le Guin, with a new Foreword by David Mitchell and a new Afterword by Charlie Jane Anders

Klappentext

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION-WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

Ursula K. Le Guin's groundbreaking work of science fiction-winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants' gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Zusammenfassung
**50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION—WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking work of science fiction—winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

**A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Leseprobe

INTRODUCTION

Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. “If this goes on, this is what will happen.” A prediction is made. Method and results much resemble those of a scientist who feeds large doses of a purified and concentrated food additive to mice, in order to predict what may happen to people who eat it in small quantities for a long time. The outcome seems almost inevitably to be cancer. So does the outcome of extrapolation. Strictly extrapolative works of science fiction generally arrive about where the Club of Rome arrives: somewhere between the gradual extinction of human liberty and the total extinction of terrestrial life.

This may explain why many people who do not read science fiction describe it as “escapist,” but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because “it’s so depressing.”

Almost anything carried to its logical extreme becomes depressing, if not carcinogenic.

Fortunately, though extrapolation is an element in science fiction, it isn’t the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer’s or the reader’s. Variables are the spice of life.

This book is not extrapolative. If you like you can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment. Let’s say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let’s say (says Philip K. Dick) that the Allies lost the Second World War; let’s say this or that is such and so, and see what happens. . . . In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move free…